Every single night, I stare up at my bedroom’s speckled ceiling, wondering if God sees me. Wondering if He feels even a little bit bad.
I try to pray more times than I can count. But it won’t come. Something that has always been as easy as speaking now feels like reciting lines.
For the first time in my life, I consider that I am being looked down on by no one, by nothing.
The verdict comes in on the penultimate day of the month, a sunny Saturday. Or maybe that’s just when my parents deign to tell me. They need to tell the congregation in the morning, before we leave for camp this week.
It’s still in her lymph nodes. Six cycles of chemotherapy that we’ll drive home from camp for once a week. My mom won’t be able to help kids at camp or be school nurse next fall—too dangerous for her feeble immune system.
Between the two of them, they tell me 5 times that everything will be fine.
I know?, I reply.
Everything will be fine.
Except I have seen behind the curtain now, and the wizard is only a man.
CHAPTER FOUR
The morning before we leave for camp, my mom finds me in my room, deep into one of my new coping mechanisms: organization! In this case, I’m sitting on the floor, surrounded by exact packing piles of clean laundry. To me, this is progress! A practical use of my fretful energy! Based on my mom’s expression, however, this may look like very sad preschool circle time: me on the carpet, surrounded by obsessively ironed stacks of clothing.
She sits on the edge of my bed, studying me with a soft look on her face. “Hey, honey.”
“Hey. Everything okay?” Her first chemo treatment isn’t till next week, but you never know what other ugly news will snake its way into our lives.
“Fine! Just fine.” She clasps her hands on her lap, settling in. “Listen, I got a phone call from Rhea Mills this morning.”
“From Daybreak?” It’s the camp closest to Holyoke, a mile away along the arc of the lake.
“Mm-hmm. Their camp just started, and they had a girls’ counselor quit. Which is quite a coincidence.”
I settle a pile of shorts into my suitcase. “You don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Exactly. This was a God thing, through and through. Because I’ve been thinking and praying—what can I do to help you through all this?”
“What? No. I’m going to help you.”
“Well, I was thinking: What if you were a counselor at Daybreak this summer?”
“Ha. Okay.” When she doesn’t laugh too, I jerk my head up. “Wait, what? What if I went to the hippie camp?”
“Don’t call it that, Luce,” she says. “And yes. I want you to consider it.”
“Are you serious? Why?”
“Well.” She sits up a little straighter, as if prepping for her opening arguments. “A few reasons. I know you love Holyoke, but the visiting church groups come and go every week.”
“Yeah?” I say, but the tone is more So what?
“I think a whole summer with the same kids would be a great way to make friends.”
“I have friends.” The words spring out too quickly—so obviously a sore spot. But I do have friends: the swim team and people at church who are my age and Lukas. I mean, maybe it’s not like sisterhood-type friends, but it’s not my fault that I transferred from private school to White Hills High freshman year. The friend groups were already formed. And I wanted to spend time at home with her and up at camp instead of bonding at sleepovers or whatever. Does she want me to not like hanging out with her and Dad?
“I know you have friends.” She says this so carefully that it’s embarrassing.
“And I’ll make new friends when I get to college. Just because you met Aunt Rachel at camp doesn’t mean I have to find a best friend there.”
“I agree.” She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. “But Daybreak is for kids who have experienced hard times in their lives—some trauma or difficulty like losing a parent or sibling. It’s mostly fun camp stuff, but there are some aspects to help with coping too.”
I didn’t know that. I figured they did drugs and sang around the campfire. My heart is going full-on prestissimo. “Well, I wouldn’t know how to help them.”
“Honey.” She says this word in the same tone that people say C’mon. Like she knows better and so do I. “What I mean is that I think the environment there would help you handle my experience with cancer.”
She always phrases it that way. Not “my illness” or “this difficult time.”
“I can’t be at a non-Christian camp. I can’t.” I whisper this, mortified. But it’s true: I need Camp Holyoke. I need to live with my parents in our little cabin and lead prayers and talk to kids about Jesus. I’m falling away so fast, and I can’t find anything to grab onto.
“Oh, Luce.” For a moment, I fear she’s going to cry. Of all the things that can unhinge a person, seeing your mother cry has to be the quickest. “Faith isn’t like getting a tan from the sun. You don’t get it from being around Christians. It’s already in you, and there’s so much ministry and good you can offer Daybreak.” She closes her eyes. “Do this for me. I’m asking.”
“I can’t! Mom!” My voice cracks, but I push back against the urge to cry. “I’m not leaving you. How can we even be talking about this?”
“Because there’s one last reason. It’s selfish.” When she opens her eyes, they’re filled with tears. “I need to know that you’d be okay.”
We stare at each other, just a few feet of beige carpet away—her on the bed, me looking up from the floor. What is she saying? That she needs to push me away now, so she can see for herself that I could survive without her?
“Mom, I’m fine. I’d be fine.” My voice cracks, betraying me. It’s like she can see invisible sentences across my face, every thought I’ve had about losing her. This is what she’d read: I think I might die if you die. I’ll never get over it, not even when I’m forty and have kids of my own. And even if heaven is real, I can’t wait all those years to see you again. “You’re going to be sick from the chemo, and I need to be there to help when—”
“I’ll be right around the lake. You can come over every week on your day off. Give me this.” Her voice is a whisper, pleading. “Please. Do this one thing for me.”
How can I deny her? But how can I actually go? Didn’t I promise God I’d do anything? He can’t want me to go to heathen camp.
“I’ll pray about it,” I say, and somewhere, Satan chuckles at how completely untrue this is.
“Good.” She lets out a soft exhale. “Thank you.”
In the quiet of my room, I kneel beside my bed—but not so I can pray as I promised I would. So I can cry into my quilt and still feel my legs on solid ground.
I’ll do it. Of course I’ll go to Daybreak. Because the darkest thought is the most convincing of all: What if this is the last thing she ever asks of me?